


Every Universe Fucker Fic

by plsnskanks (orphan_account)



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-06-09 05:53:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15260835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/plsnskanks
Summary: Tord wants to get laid but cant in this universe, so he tries a few others





	1. Chapter 1

Tord looks at the cooling cum in his hand with distaste. So this is it, isn’t it. He’s sunk this low. Tom’s spare change of clothes gripped tightly in his other hand he tries to ignore the fact he looks like a right degenerate sitting there, with his ex-lover’s clothes in his hand, lusting after the remnant of his essence.

Pathetic.

He a commander of an entire army, made weak kneed by a scruffy rebel dragging around an ill-equipped resistance while his so-called “best friend” set every red city territory on fire.

Pathetic.

That he should bow before any whelp, anyone who thought they could put up a resistance. No. 

Pathetic.

Why did he feel so pathetic? Tord leans back in his chair, putting his hand over his face. He drags it down, pulling everything under it down as it goes and letting out a muffled sigh of exasperation as he slumps completely in defeat.

He lays there, slanted back in his chair staring at the bright fluorescent lights that stare right back at him and he is listening to the high whine of the lights, looking at each repeating bulb throughout the room, thinking, pondering its mundane, unoriginal existence….

When it hits him.

He’s in the lab in seemingly the blink of an eye. He’s got his interdimensional gun, fresh off the tests runs and “safe enough” according to the head scientist named Volker who leers at him when he says it. Volker is in league with Lenker somehow, how he hasn't quite pinned down yet, but unlike Lenker he seems to bleed and have a pulse and Tord is significantly less worried about having his kidneys cut out by their lead technician. 

Tord turns it over in its hand. The grip has the Red Army insignia engraved in it, delicate, yet robust in its presence. A sense of pride, a sense of confidence, a sense of self righteous indignation wells within him.  
Tom had been quite the pest these past few months, but Tord was about to get him back. Across time and space if necessary.

He sets the gun and fires at the wall, jumping into the wavering translucent portal.

And ends up in front of his house. Well. What used to be his house. Before he nuked it with the giant robot. The key is where it usually is, under the welcome mat.

He pushes open the door and there he is, laying on the couch, bass in hand, strumming idly.

“Uh, can I help you?” Tom says, looking at him with blank eyes. 

“Yeah… it’s me, your old pal Tord”. Tord’s hands shake a little as he looks at him. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Since he didn’t immediately spit in Tord’s face if he got within range.

Tom looks at him a long moment. A very long moment. Tord can feel there’s some sort of tension in the room but he has absolutely no idea as to what to attribute it to.

“Uhh, okay, alright, I’m gonna say what I should have said before,” Tom looks genuinely odded out as he puts his bass aside and sits up straight, Tord looks at him a bit confused. What’s with the sudden shift in demeanor? He has no clue.

Tom blinks slowly and puts his hands in his lap, “Y’know I was never the kind of person to believe in these kinds of things, but if you of all people are here, it must be true, heh?”

Tom looks at him with a sort of sad half smile. Not even that. It’s like a quarter smile and even then his lips are twitching down and he looks more like he wants to cry than anything else.

Tord kinda… wants to give him a hug. All the spite that had been roiling in his stomach and eating through it is ebbing away as he looks at Tom struggling with emotion.

“I’m sorry I killed you, I hope you found peace. Despite everything,” Tom is looking at the floor, at his checkered shoes.

What. What, what, what. Tord turns the words over in his head. What. He takes out his gun and Tom flinches and covers his head with his hands.

“Tord wait!”

Tord rolls his eyes and fires the gun at the nearest wall. There is nothing he wants here, clearly unless he wants to dig up his corpse in the backyard for a laugh.

Tom looks after him as he walks toward it.

“You’re … not dead?”

“Apparently in this universe I am, tell me, before I leave, how’d you do it?”

Tom’s face falls into a small grin, “Put chewing gum in one of your weird experimental laser guns and it fried the whole lab when it exploded.”

Wow. What a shit way to go. Tord flips him the bird, Tom returns it in kind and he’s through the portal.

But not before Tom calls, “I’m going to dump litter on your grave tomorrow.”

He winds up in a… a throne room of some kind? He could have sworn he set the coordinates to their house but. Hmm.

“Oh dear, how did you get out?” A voice behind him says. A wide-eyed man in some kind of blue uniform with an insignia on it comes up to him and seizes him by the back of his hoodie. “And what are you wearing. I swear, Blue Leader puts you things in the most ridiculous getups.”

“Uh-,” Tord’s thought and breath are cut short as the man starts to bodily drag him towards a set of giant steel doors.

“Seriously, I don’t know how many times I put you runts back here you always seem to get out,” the man mutters annoyance bright in his tone. He pushes Tord forward and Tord stumbles to his knees in what appears to be a very spacious room full of a throne. With Tom sitting on it. With about ten to fifteen naked clones of… himself.

Tord takes a long look at the sight. You know he can’t even be mad. Well, he can, but deep down he knows he has no ground to stand on. He’s always liked those harem anime and he’ll be damned if he hasn’t thought about what it would be like to have five variants of Tom trying to get his pickle.

So really, he’s kind of impressed alternate universe Tom managed to live out his fantasy. At the same time he would like to bodily pull his eyeballs from his socket and rinse them in lye. But kudos to Tom, nonetheless.

“You’re not one of mine are you?” Tom says, looking at him with a look of distaste. Everything about him is polished, authoritative and graceful. In contrast to the clones of himself panting, whining moaning, he thinks that one back there half behind the throne is jacking off. Tom looks good. Really good.

“You figure that out by the clothes or the fact I still have my dignity?” Tord says, looking with particular ire at the Tord sprawled naked across Tom’s lap getting his head pet.

“Neither, you look and smell like a dog,” Tom says and gives a withering look at is doing about the opposite to Tord’s groin. Then he glances over his shoulder and sees two armed guards joining the one that escorted him here.

He does not like his chances of getting a quickie in here. Shame too, because damn does Tom look good in a uniform and its been a while since he’s been that close. On second thought, he kinda envies lap Tord. At least he’s getting something.

Tord lets his gaze linger a little more before turning back to look at the guards and resolving himself.

“Alright, I’m done with this one too,” Tord sighs, pulling out his gun. Immediately every Tord in the room cowers and several take shelter behind Tom’s throne. Jack off Tord doesn’t seem to notice or care. Well that’s one thing they have in common. Godspeed.

“Easy pets,” Tom coos to them. Man does Tord wish he’d thought to bring a real gun.

“Drop that. If you kill me or harm any of my-,” Tord waves him off.

“Don’t mind me I’m gone, your highness,” He aims at the floor and without further ado, jumps through the portal. Thanks. No Thanks.

And lands back in his living room. In front of Tom again.

“Hey, am I dead?” Tord asks bluntly.

Tom looks up from his magazine to look at him coldly with a tinge of annoyance. Tord’s heart flutters.

“I dunno… are you?”

Yep. That’s the one.

“Want to fuck?”

Tom sighs. Rolls his eyes. Goes back to reading the magazine. Tord waits. He always waits.

“You going to stand there all day?”

“Yep.”

“You going to go away if we do it?”

“Yep.”

Tom gives a long suffering sigh. Throws the magazine down on the ground and stands up. He throws a look over his shoulder.

“We’re doing it in your room, I’m not washing my sheets and giving up part of my day. The first one’s on you.”

Tord follows after, giddy with the prospect of fucking at least an alternate version of his past lover. Enemy. Same difference really. 

Tom opens the door to his room and by the time he’s smoothed out his bed, he turns around to see Tord standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorway in what he probably thinks is a sexy pose.

“Miss me?” 

“For all of the half hour you left me alone? Hardly,” Tom snorts and reaches to take off his own hoodie. 

He’s waited so long for this, craved this. Craved to feel the suppleness of Tom underneath him, to hold him down and fuck him roughly until he begged, until he cried. Then to go so gently and kiss him so tenderly, hold him so close because he knew underneath it all he was so gentle, so precious.

Tord closed his eyes and savored the things to come. He could feel part of him stiffing, he could feel the heat, the passion, the desire, the need. Oh god could he.

His eyes watch as Tom strips himself in front of him. He watches him take off his hoodie and his eyes trace the gentle and elegant curve of his back, linger on the shoulder blades he wants to bite and kiss and just mark up all over.

He watches him slide his pants down revealing his pert little ass that Tord cant wait to grope and spread and his thoughts roam to everything he could do and has already done and would like to do again. Ah yes. He’s missed this so much. 

He doesn’t know how he’s gone so long without it. Tord’s heart thumps as he waits. Tom turns around and Tord can feel excitement welling in his chest.

Only to have it die like a patient on the operating table when he sees Tom’s chest.

“Is… is that a third nipple?”

“Why yes Tord. Basic anatomy says it is indeed,” Tom says as he crosses the room to Tord. He starts to unbutton his jacket.

“Where’d you get this weird getup anyways, I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t look good on you,” Tom says with a sly smile. “Don’t tell Edd or Matt, I said that, you hear?” He practically purrs.

Tord wants to be into this. He wants to be so, so into this. But Tom’s third nipple. It’s raising questions. What else does Tom have three of? Tord really wants to stick around to see in his pants. Three kidneys? Maybe Tom will actually live to fifty if that’s the case. Three eyes? Is there one on his back somewhere.

Tord lets him pull of his hoodie. Tord wants to enjoy this, he does. Tom being nice. Tom acting like sex with him isn’t some chore like taking out the garbage. Tom acting like he doesn’t want to rip his genitals off and sauté them in a frying pan.

He wants to savor the moment. But he just. Why three nipples. What about this universe would allow that to happen. Tom gets his sweater all the way off. 

Tom stares in confusion, “Wh- are you some sort of lab experiment that escaped?”

Tord blinks, “Something like that.”

Tom sighs, “Yeah alright nope. Not up for this shit today, you ruined it.”

“Likewise,” Tord says, eyes still staring at the nipple. The nipple looked back. Tord shuddered a minute bit.

“Okay, well here’s your shit,” Tom says gathering his clothes from off the ground and shoving them into Tord’s arms. 

“Yeah,” Tord says, not moving his gaze. There’s a long moment of silence between them.

“Look can I just touch it.” Tord says finally.

“You going to stand there all day?”

“Yep.”

“You going to go away if you do it?”

“Yep.”

Tom gives a long suffering sigh.

“Fine.”

Tord touches it. It feels like a nipple usually does, its just there. In the middle of his chest. For no reason. He can feel his sternum under it. Weird. Tord grabs his gun and fires it at Tom’s wall. Tom looks nonplussed.

“Thanks.”

“Uhuh,” Tom says finding a new magazine to look at and sitting on his bed. He looks up for a split second at Tord as Tord heads into the portal. He looks unimpressed. Are all interdimensional Tom’s just perpetually bored by life and weird happenings?

Scratch that. He knew the answer. God, did he.

Tord steps through the portal to end up in a room. A white room, with no doors, no windows, and some old dude sitting on a fold out metal chair feet resting on a fold out metal table. He’s wearing a lab coat and khakis and something about the whole situation seems terribly off.

He looks at the guy, grey hair sticking out in tufts in all sorts of odd directions. He looks bored. Terribly, horribly, bored by Tord and he looks at him with bland disinterest.

“So, uh,” the man burps as he is about to start talking, “You some sort of pseudo communist leader from a dimension where armies heavily color code themselves and abide by cartoony antics to win wars?”

Tord looks at him confused and trying to process whether that statement was apt.

“I-,” he starts.

“Whatever, cut it with the gun, okay? I have enough problems with the council as is without some wannabe space Stalin running around making things harder than they have to be. Give it,” the guy outstretches his hand and Tord thinks about making a break for it, but then he looks at the guy’s eyes and he gets the idea that he’ll make it home in the state of matter he wants to make it home in if and only if he listens to him. He gives him the gun.

The man turns it over, examines it.

“Pretty shoddy work, you should invest more into your soldering kits if this is the best,” he pulls out a tool that looks like a screwdriver but in reality is about fifty different tools in one, “your research department can do. No wonder you’re losing the war.”

He zaps his gun a few times with his multitool then tosses the gun back.

“That’s good for exactly one trip back. Don’t test it. You want to get stuck in some nowhere dimension where farts replace air or whatever, that’s on you.”

The man reaches into his lab coat and pulls out this gun, “See this? More talent in a fraction of the time your whole research team spent, what, five years?” He scans Tord’s face, eyebrows shooting up in amusement, “Seriously? Six? Seven? Seven years, wow, and I thought I was behind the curve. You better mosey on home space cowboy, back to your intergalactic dark ages.”

With that the guy fires his gun, steps into a glowing green portal and Tord is left alone with his mutilated gun and sense of pride.

He fires it. His portal is also green now, for reasons he cant even imagine. He gets back into the lab and tosses his gun at the lab head, “Do me a favor an examine that.”

“How was the test run?” Volker asks, smug air about him. Tord doesn’t even want to know.

“The run was shit, the gun works fine.”

“Happen to meet anyone?” The lab head asks and Tord immediately knows what question he’s baiting.

“What do you know about him?”

“I know if he was hiring I’d be out from here in two seconds, but he’s not, and also he said to keep out test runs clear of his dimensions unless we want to see, and I quote, ‘What a multidimensional cheese grater is like’”.

Tord pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright well can you auto fix the gun to steer clear of those areas.”

“I will in the next prototype because this one is shot,” Volker sighs, putting the gun down on the table with a clack.

Tord leaves. He needs a smoke as bad as he has ever needed one. He’s just clearing the lab when Pat appears.

“Sir we have made important advances on the Blue Army, Green Rebellion, and Purple Counterintelligence.

“How long was I gone in total?” Tord asked. He legitimately had no clue what the temporal effects of his travel would be.

“About two months sir,” Patryk said without betraying any emotion.

Tord screamed internally. A two month vacation so he could go of and… fail to get laid. And even better his army seemingly did better when he wasn’t around.

Tord sighs, ”Alright, I assume we have a briefing meeting then?”

“Ah yes sir, indeed,” Patryk said. Tord pulled out a cigar and lit it. His subordinates would bitch about the smoke behind his back, but to his face? They’d keep quiet.

“Alright then. Lets go.”

Sitting in the same damn room, with the same damn hum of the lights in repeating rows stretching the length of the room, Tord wasn’t sure if this whole excursion had made him feel better, or worse.

It was worse. Definitely worse.


	2. Some extra stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eh so here is how i imagine the tord clone shit would happen. how it progresses to the point it is in the last ch, idk beats me, would have to be a long fic tbh.

“Hey Blue Leader,” A cocky voice rang out as Tom sat hunched over his desk, sorting through papers. Tom’s head snapped to look at Tord who was standing at the entryway to the meeting room.

He stepped aside and suddenly Tom was seeing double.

“Tord how….” God, he hoped this was just a headache. That someone had cold clocked him over his head and this was just a phantom figment.

“Trial and error,” comes the instantaneous response. “Lot of graves to dig on that count but look! I was able to replicate Bing’s machine,” Tord says with an excited grin.

“Only problem is it jammed and only stopped when it ran out of juice and, err, organic materials.”

Tom closed his eyes letting out a deep sigh, “How many?”

“Fifteen and a half,” Tord said as suddenly the doorway crowded with what was now a small herd of Tords. “The half didn’t make it.” He says in explanation to Tom’s curiously horrified look.

“But the fifteen did,” Tord said, gesturing excitedly to the crowd of clones behind him.

“And what are we supposed to do with sixteen of you?” Tom said, raising an eyebrow.

“Well since there’s fifteen of them we officially qualify as at least a squad so that makes me their sergeant,” Tord says with a winning smile.

“You want to go into battle with fifteen clones of yourself?” Tom says incredulously. He throws a glance at his forlorn pile of papers.

“Unless you have another job for us in mind,” Tord said, flashing Tom a grin and waggling his eyebrows.

They become the janitorial staff initially, mostly because Tom isn’t sure whether the mental faculties of the clone’s match the original, and if so they definitely didn’t need to be armed. Tom’s patience for Tord starts to wear thin as he pulls pranks on which Tord is the real Tord until he genuinely doesn’t know which is which. Then he remembers original Tord has a tattoo of something unsavory in an even more unsavory place.

That is how he ends up with sixteen naked Tords in an effort to locate the real one. He has them stand at attention and unfortunately, they aren’t the only ones. He locates the real one and drags him out of line.

“If I have to do this every time, I’ll keep every one of you sans clothing permanently.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?” Tord asks, and he seems genuinely confused but aroused either way.

“Just get them to put their clothes back on,” Tom says in irritation. Tord dog whistles to the others and in a few moments most of the Tords have most of their clothes back on.

Tord decides he is going to teach his legion of clones to shoot. After some initial hesitation Tord tries to win Tom over by reminding Tom that the Tord’s were unlikely to turn traitor as they all had the same memories as him and thus an unwavering loyalty to Tom. Tom doubts that. Greatly. Mostly because he doubted even Tord’s loyalty was unwavering. But fifteen unarmed and untrained men was more of a hassle than it was worth and he figured he could suss out a traitor using a polygraph and his advantage of knowing some of the original Tord’s tells for lying. So he lets them fire on an indoor range in a locked room with extra security posted outside.

And much to Tom’s surprise, most of them are decent shots. After Tord gives his crew a few pointers, adjusts a few stances, he leaves the range and joins his esteemed Blue Leader up on the observation deck.

“Memories were transferred so even if they may not have the muscle memory, they have the gist of what to do,” Tord explains. A particularly rowdy Tord shoots his gun directly above him into the ceiling, raining down bits of plaster onto the others as they defensively dive away for cover.

“Ah that one has bit more zest for some reason,” Tord said as Tom stared at the rogue Tord in horror. He called something to the Tord in Norwegian and the other Tord sighed and popped the magazine out of his gun throwing it aside. After a few moments the other Tords came peeked out from their cover.

“Do they all have unique personalities?” Tom asked.

“They’re fairly distinct? It gets more pronounced as time passes and they stop being essentially the same person with the same memories and more fifteen people with the same memories but different experiences making different choices,” Tord shrugged. 

“I like to call the crazy one Todd though. I caught him eating drywall once,” Tord said grinning as one of the Tords tackled Todd and the others cheered.

“Do they have a pecking order?” Tom asked as he watched the Tord at the bottom of the pile go pink under the weight of the Tords above him.

“Yeah,” Tord said. “I am at the top obviously, the one true Tord or whatever. But Todd’s up near the top, the only one higher than him is the one that tends to hang back and watch the others a lot. He doesn’t emote as much as the others and I honestly think he might be….” Tord dropped off lost in thought.

Tom looked at him expectantly and Tord started a bit.

“Sorry all of this gets a bit dizzying from time to time, these are like fifteen different timelines unfolding in parallel in front of me and it gets to be a bit much. Put me borderline into an existential crisis a time or two. What I was going to say is that Tord seems to be a culmination of my most antisocial traits is all. He’s quieter, more manipulative, and when the situation calls for it, more aggressive. Gives me an uneasy feeling if I am being honest.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him then. Dispose of if necessary. I am sure you are loyal to the cause, but as for the fifteen other you’s, I am not as trusting.”

“Are you saying I have a devilish streak?” Tord smirked.

“Am I wrong?” Tom says and he can’t help but smile as he says it, despite all his efforts not to.

Tord replies with a kiss. Tom doesn't really have time to react and he just stands there and accepts it. He isn't good with spontaneity, doesn't have a strategy for this quite yet. Tom gets the eerie sensation of being watched and he opens his eyes and stiffens to see some of the crowd of Tords staring at them some grinning some winking, others returning to practicing their aim. 

Something about the moment seems to elicit a change amongst the Tords. When Tom sees them he feels a heat, an energy, a tension in the room that wasn’t there before. He can’t help but feel in the passing weeks that he is being watched more intently as time passes. He doesn’t talk or interact with the clones much, not having the time to head that issue as he focuses under the brunt of managing his army.

But he can’t help but feel there is some marked change and some nagging unease that rests in the pit of his stomach every time he opts to spend even a fraction of an hour around the clones. But as things heat up on the battlefield Tom does what he does best which is shove his secondary concerns to the back and focus on the primary ones.

Things come to a head when they are celebrating a victory and Tord decides it is a good idea to let his clones have alcohol for what is the first time.

He had held off it for a time because he was worried about the long-term viability of his clones and didn’t want to further damage an already fragile structure. But after a few months of them not spontaneously dissolving into sludge, Tord is content to let them do as they please so long as he is around to record the results.

The result is that the party quickly dissolves into chaos. Todd upends a rather large punchbowl with a yell and is promptly wrestled to the ground by two other clones. The three of them roll in the shattered remains of the bowl and onlookers can’t be sure whether the red on the floor consists of entirely punch.

Another Tord approaches with a chair, looking about ready to crack the three of them over the head with it. And Tom himself just stares dead-eyed at the real Tord as one of the clones finishes off a beer to throw it down violently onto the floor where it lays in shambles as he immediately sprints off to join the fray.

“I have this,” Tord says placatingly to Tom, who does not respond, but merely continues to look at him stony faced. A half hour later, Tord still does not “have this” but he has about half of the clones in the base’s brig and the other half apparently still at large.

Tord is wandering down a particularly dark corridor. At the end of the hallway he sees something sparking, distant movement, but the shadows are murky and opaque, so he draws closer to squint at whatever it is and ends up with an abdomen full of punchbowl shard.

Well.

Patryk and Paul find him, breathing shallowly but still alive, albeit just barely, in a massive pool of his own blood.

By morning the remaining clones are all tracked down, spare one. The original Tord is put in the hospital under constant surveillance with an armed guard. Thanks to having fourteen identical clones, receiving enough blood to keep Tord in the mortal realm isn’t an issue.

Despite multiple hours of search the last Tord is not recovered. Tom feels mild shame at the fact he can’t even identify which one has gone missing. He really had been relying entirely on Tord to keep fifteen people under control with no check-in’s.

He visits Tord, who after about seventeen hours of sleep, still looks haggard and tired. He puts a hand to his face and rubs his eyes.

“Alright Blue Leader, let’s have it,” Tord says. It is striking how pale his skin is, he looks almost bluish in the harsh fluorescent light.

“Have what,” Tom asks, as he breaks from taking in the sight of Tord.

“The lecture, the command to dispatch the clones, whatever the crackdown is. Don’t go easy on me now Tom, let’s have it.” 

An odd jolt goes down Tom’s spine as he hears his own name out loud for the first time in what feels like an eternity. It honestly feels like he is being called to while he is somewhere deep underwater, as if some ancient part of him long forgotten is being accessed. Tom remembers Tord and him used to live together in a house with two other guys on a fairly quiet street. They had a cat.

“There isn’t going to be any repercussions on your part, well… not punitive ones. I realize it was wrong of me to under supervise your efforts,” Tom said, looking at Tord as he said this. He brought his arms behind his back and shifted guiltily.

“Well, well, could that be the ever so rare emotion of guilt,” Tord said quirking a eyebrow and staring at Tom with amusement and a hint of something else.

Tom finds at moments like this, the office of Blue Leader to be extremely isolating. He would, right now, like to crack and tell Tord, yes he does feel guilty. He is sorry. He is sorry that Tord ended up in the hospital, he is sorry that he hadn’t been in contact with him as much as he had wanted to be, he is sorry they haven’t genuinely talked in so long.

But there are two men in the room and an incalculable weight on Tom’s shoulders and the physical distance between Tord and him is a foot but the emotional one is miles. Miles and miles and Tom is tired and scared for the man in front of him with no vehicle to express it.

“I can’t even tell which one we lost,” Tom blurts out. Tord looks at him confused a moment and then burst into raucous laughter.

“Well good for you, I do, it’s the quiet one. Can’t say I didn’t see it coming, he always had a way of making the others go a bit funny, but did I expect him to try and eviscerate me? Not so much,” the light in Tord’s face fades a little as he leans back into his pillow. He looks at Tom seriously.

“If you are wondering, he doesn’t have any serious intel on him, at least not from me. Can’t tell you what he might have nicked on the way out of the base. But I never let the clones mix with members of the base for security reasons, so we are alright on that front,” Tord seems to further melt into his bed as he talks. 

“It wasn’t just you understaffing me, by the way, it was me over estimating my abilities. I mean yes, it was a bit insane for me to not at least have Paul or Patryk assisting. But part of me wanted to do it on my own. So thanks for enabling my egotism,” Tord said with a tight smile.

“From now on I will have a high-ranking officer assist you,” Tom said. “We are also going to interrogate the clones to see if any had fore knowledge of this plan.”

“Most likely not. There’s one or two that even I can’t tell when they’re lying, but for the most part the clones are loyal to the cause. I mean they don’t even know what the cause is, but they sure are loyal to it,” Tord says with a grin. It looks nice, it is nice that he keeps his humor even on what was potentially his death bed.

“Well Tord, it is nice to see you are still around and kicking,” Tom says and he wishes the words weren’t as hard and as cold as they have to be. But he has power to consolidate and appearances to manage and none of that makes room for his emotions, which sit in a glass bottle on a shelf in the back of his head, waiting for a time when he can breathe a little better and Tord can do likewise. 

He remembers kissing him all that while back and it was a mistake. It’s whet an appetite he can’t even afford to have at the moment.

He meets Tord’s eyes once more. Tord nods. He leaves.


End file.
